Leading the way

GEORGIA Hinkley was born and bred in Victoria’s Western District on a Camperdown beef and sheep farm.

Georgia’s father was also the local livestock agent, which included a real estate licence – providing Georgia with an early general understanding of the property market.

With her father’s encouragement and a Ballarat Grammar education, Georgia began a double degree at RMIT – a Bachelor of Science majoring in valuations.

As a graduate, Georgia worked with the Deague Group, giving her exposure to the hotel and commercial office development market, but realised a sales career was not a personality match for her.

Leaving Melbourne, she moved to Ocean Grove and continued her study while working full time on rating valuations, which included honing her skills over an 18-month period back in the Western District region.

A chance meeting at the Warrnambool May races with Preston Rowe Paterson’s (PRP) joint partner Stuart McDonald quickly led to a job offer from principal Gareth Kent, which Georgia accepted.

Fully qualified by 2014, and with a broad exposure to the full range of valuation skills, Georgia soon found her niche in family law and probate valuations.

This has since become her area of expertise and she now manages the specialist team for the PRP Geelong, Warrnambool and Mount Gambier offices.

Her team helps dozens of loyal professional service clients in the legal, accounting and finance sectors.

Georgia knows what it is like to operate in a male-dominated industry, but has seen substantial change over the past 10 years.

She is delighted to see many more young women come into the industry and identify valuation as a preferred career option.

PRP’s national manager of training, diversity and inclusion, Christine Falson, believes talented young women like Georgia have paved the way for others to follow.

“This is an exciting industry providing a great career path with options to work in office locations all over the country,” she said.

“PRP is a national firm that is in a growth phase. This opens up all sorts of opportunities to progress within the firm.”

Geelong principal Gareth Kent confirmed that Georgia was a perfect example of his business, actively sourcing talented young people from the regions they were brought up in – “local people with local knowledge.”

Now living in Wallington, Georgia and husband Joe have started a family with Bobby, 6, and Clover, 4, being joined by recent arrival Gigi.

The flexibility to balance a growing family with a professional career is a key pillar of PRP’s support of the women in the business.

Across PRP’s 38 offices nationally, 60 per cent of cadets, 33 per cent of total staff and 22 per cent of valuers are female.

PRP received the Australian Property Institute’s ‘Diversity & Inclusion’ Award in 2022, and Georgia’s performance and professional standards were recognised with Preston Rowe Paterson’s own ‘Woman of the Year’ Award in 2023.

For more information, visit prp.com.au/geelong.